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Brigham Young Cougars: 2011 Defensive Line Preview

Along with the rest of the team, the Brigham Young Cougars defensive line was very disappointing during the first 1/3 of the season. Once head coach Bronco Mendenhall fired defensive coordinator Jaime Hill and assumed responsibility for the defense, the defensive line became one of the most feared in all of college football. Not even #4 TCU could manage much of offense for most of a half.
The leader of that unit, Vic So’oto, is gone, but expectations are high for the Cougars defensive line in 2011. Just yesterday, Greg Wrubell included this in his Cougar Tracks blog from Mendenhall about the defensive line:

Mendenhall says "I believe we'll have at least six" defensive lineman to rotate this season. Based on camp daily depth, it appears those six are Graham Rowley, Romney Fuga, Eathyn Manumaleuna, Loni Fangupo, Travis Tuiloma and Jordan Richardson, with Mike Muehlmann right there. Of Fuga, Mendenhall says "It's going to be really hard to run the football on us, because of him."

Rowley, Fuga, Manumaleuna, and Richardson were all contributors in 2010. Fuga saw his season cut short with an knee injury during game four. Richardson was also injured 10 games into the season.

Hebron “Loni” Fangupo is a transfer from USC. Tuiloma redshirted last year after being a unanimous All-State player in Kansas. Muehlmann played on offense last year as a tight end.

Fuga, Fangupo, and Tuiloma are very, very big bodies (over 300 pounds). Mendenhall has almost 1,000 pounds backing up his statement about teams finding it hard to run the ball. Stopping the run will be critical for BYU to win the first three or four games this year.

Defensive end Matt Putnam was a big contributor on the line last season. His status with the team this year is up in the air. Currently he is academically ineligible, but Mendenhall has said that Putnam is working hard to fix that and be eligible when the season starts. Putnam is a senior and he has already redshirted. If he cannot resolve this issue, his playing days at BYU are done.

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BYU football has been pretty hard to watch in 2017, particularly on offense. After game two, a 27-0 loss to LSU, Head Coach Kalani Sitake said, "I know I am coming down hard on the offense, but, man, let's be honest, that was the issue." The offensive production hasn't gotten much better since, and Sitake hasn't changed his rhetoric.

Who would blame him? BYU is averaging 9.8 points per game, 4.3 yards per play (3.2 yards per rush and 5.2 yards per pass), and 221.75 total yards per game. The Cougar offense has converted just 34 percent of third downs, has averaged 23:47 time of possession, and has a 93.7 pass efficiency rating.

That has some fans speculating that one or more coaches will be fired before the end of the season. That is madness. No one on the BYU coaching staff will be unemployed before the game at Hawaii on November 25.

Making a coaching change midseason is reserved for exceptional cases. Either something happens off the field, or the same problem …

Growing up a fan of BYU football was fun. The foundation had already been laid with the 1984 National Championship, the long list of All-American quarterbacks, and the reputation of being an unstoppable offensive powerhouse. I witnessed Ty Detmer win the Heisman Trophy, Steve Young win Super Bowl MVP honors, and the legendary LaVell Edwards build a team that won the Cotton Bowl and could compete with any team in the country.

It wasn't long ago that Max Hall delivered on his passionate halftime guarantee, "We're going to win," and beat the number 3 ranked Oklahoma Sooners. The Cougars did it without running back Harvey Unga, who would set the school's career rushing record later that year.

At that time BYU was on the bubble of busting the BCS every year, and with the legacy that Cougar football has, fans were justified in believing their beloved Cougars were still among the top tier in college football.

The 2017 football season is three games old for BYU. The Cougars have already been shutout once, they have not passed for more than 200 yards in a game, and have no real established playmakers. That is a formula for furious fans in Cougar Nation.

Some fans are calling for a coaching change. Others are preaching patience. A third group wants the offensive coaches to run a different scheme.

It is no secret that offensive coordinator Ty Detmer is not trying to run the same scheme he used as a player at BYU to rewrite the NCAA record book. The offense he wants to run resembles what he learned during his 14 seasons in the NFL.

Lackluster results this year has this approach under scrutiny. After all, Tanner Mangum does not look like the same quarterback who passed for 3,377 yards, 23 touchdowns, and had a 136 pass efficiency rating in Robert Anae's offense as a freshman.

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